Pony Megathread

[Kreekakon]

Okay it's episode review time! This will be SPOILER filled so tread with caution!

This episode is "Spike at Your Service" as episode 9 of season 3.

Let's start off with what I liked about the episode. It had a fare few funny moments in there, and I found myself laughing more than once, but given this is MLP this should always be the case. I found the "horrible acting" part to be quite funny in particular. Also, the pacing seemed mostly fine to me, except maybe for that end.

Now let's move on to some of the more "controversial" aspects of the ep.

First off I want to talk about Spike, how did he became so clumsy all of a sudden? Being Twilight's #1 assistant, he should have been way better at doing what he did in assisting Applejack. I guess you could make the justification that maybe he isn't suited to do the work that she did in this episode, as opposed to the work that Twilight made him do. But seriously, I think they should have made him so that he was actually a very good helper like how other episodes portray him and it would still work. You could make him just an over-eager helper who although is very helpful is good at what he does, but just too damn stressful for Applejack to handle. That would've worked fine, and not confuse a long-time fan of MLP.

I also dislike that Spike introduces a dragon code out of nowhere. He's easily been saved many times prior, but has never used it up until now which just makes it seem forced in for the sake of it.

Next thing is the Timber Wolves themselves. I dislike that they used 3D for the wolves, which should be obvious that they did. I always liked MLP for its super simple, non-gradient style art, so seeing 3D wolves running on obvious 3D animation just felt really really jarring to me, and off-putting as someone who likes the art style of MLP so much.

Why didn't Spike use his fire breath to burn the timberwolves? They're made of wood, perfectly flammable material that Spike could very easily use to defend himself! Heck, we even saw him used as a lighter in the last episode to set some wood on fire. I get that he might have been panicking at the time, but still.

Also, the way the final Timber Wolf revived as a huge one was brilliant IMO, but it was offput by how quickly it died. It may have been funny, but it does no good for making a good downfall of an antagonistic creature.

The last thing is the needless forcing in of characters, particularly Pinkie Pie. This is something that's been worrying me for some time now. More, and more I'm seeing Pinkie Pie being "forced" into episodes for pure comedic effect which isn't as funny as it's even intended to be. She's turned into more of a one-note gag than an actual
character. It just annoys me sometimes, and makes me wish that when we see Pinkie we see the deeper, more interesting Pinkie (Party of One, Too Many Pinkies, etc) we can see from some previous episodes rather than the simple prankster we sometimes see forced in from nowhere (This episode, Wonderbolts Academy).

Rarity also shares this problem with Pinkie. It's not as severe, but slowly getting there.


Verdict: The several funny moments are not really enough to offset characters who are out of character quite often. 6/10


Also, for the pure fun of it I suddenly feel like posting out all the scores I've graded for season 3 so far:

The Crystal Empire: 8/10
Too Many Pinkie Pies: 9/10
One Bad Apple: 8/10
Magic Duel: 9.2/10
Sleepless in Ponyville: 7.5/10
Wonderbolts Academy: 7/10
Apple Family Reunion: 7.8/10
Spike at Your Service: 6/10

EDIT: I think I'll watch the new episode again. It may not change the views I have on the episode, but might change the degree I enjoy it thus boosting the score. It's definitely happened to me in the past.